Mining Impacts in Latin America
For my work in my Spanish class: Comunidad Global En Accion, or "Global Community in Action," I have been researching the impacts of the mining industry on Latin America through the lens of human rights, which has been a major topic of discussion thus far. I'll cover some material here that I wasn't able to cover in my presentations in class.
Mineral mining is a major part of the economy in Latin America. In Peru, gold is a major export, and in Cuba, the country that I focused on researching in AP Spanish Language, is an exporter of nickel. In Mexico, silver and gold are mined. However, the cost of mining these material is multifactorial and significant.
Miner safety is perhaps one of the largest problems that stems from the mining industry. This comes primarily from the substances that miners are exposed to. Miners are exposed to fine dust particles that contain silica, which causes silicosis, a lung disease, in about 15-22% of miners in Bolivia and Columbia.
Miners are particularly at risk of mercury exposure. Mercury is used in gold mining operations because it has the property to amalgamate or mix with gold selectively. This means it can be used to purify gold from dirt, at the cost of health. Mercury is very dangerous: methylmercury, a form of mercury that is formed from the actions of aquatic microbes, "biomagnifies" or concentrates in animals as you get higher up in the food chain. This is ultimately harmful for the humans who are exposed to this form of mercury through consumption or gaseous form and is responsible for causing "Minamata disease," a form of mercury poisoning named after Minamata City in Japan.
Sexual health is also at risk as a result of mining. Mining is an industry that exhausts accessible minerals in an area and moves on to the next, therefore, it involves the displacement of workers. These new camps that are formed by traveling miners are usually divided on sex lines. This combined with the larger amount of disposable income that these men now have results in a higher rate of sexual violence. Women are also disadvantaged by the mining industry because they are paid less than the men, therefore, they cannot reap the benefits of mining as men can and are reliant on men for income. In some cases, women engage in sexual activity for transactional purposes because they don't have the purchasing power that men have.
Child labor is also a result of mining activity: a significant portion of the mining in Peru is done as a result of child labor. This stems from a lack of educational opportunity and entrenched beliefs that labor from a young age is the best thing to do with one's children.
As for remedying some of the problems that stem from mining, things to think about are the harms that come to workers involved in the industry and possibly why workers are involved in this industry in the first place.
The first thing to do is not to vilify the workers who "perpetrate environmental damage." As Charlie Hamilton James said in his lecture at Caltech in 2018, environmental consciousness is a bourgeois concept. This is perhaps not the most nuanced stance, but the point is that the perspectives of the workers should be considered when looking at why mining continues. Minerals are natural resources that are used by the people who live there because it is a way to survive and perhaps escape the cycle of poverty. They cannot be faulted for trying to find a source of income. In fact, these workers are who should be targeted in terms of solutions to the harms of mining, because they are those who bear the brunt of the health consequences.
Things we can do are to increase awareness about handling mercury. A concept has been tried in Venezuela that has mercury from amalgam end up in a safe area as opposed to in the environment as a result of increasing miner awareness of mercury effects in the environment. Education is also a long term goal to reduce the emphasis on mining, because for rural communities in Peru, mining seems an option more desirable than education.
Sources:
https://content.sph.harvard.edu/mining/files/Veiga.pdf
Mineral mining is a major part of the economy in Latin America. In Peru, gold is a major export, and in Cuba, the country that I focused on researching in AP Spanish Language, is an exporter of nickel. In Mexico, silver and gold are mined. However, the cost of mining these material is multifactorial and significant.
Miner safety is perhaps one of the largest problems that stems from the mining industry. This comes primarily from the substances that miners are exposed to. Miners are exposed to fine dust particles that contain silica, which causes silicosis, a lung disease, in about 15-22% of miners in Bolivia and Columbia.
Miners are particularly at risk of mercury exposure. Mercury is used in gold mining operations because it has the property to amalgamate or mix with gold selectively. This means it can be used to purify gold from dirt, at the cost of health. Mercury is very dangerous: methylmercury, a form of mercury that is formed from the actions of aquatic microbes, "biomagnifies" or concentrates in animals as you get higher up in the food chain. This is ultimately harmful for the humans who are exposed to this form of mercury through consumption or gaseous form and is responsible for causing "Minamata disease," a form of mercury poisoning named after Minamata City in Japan.
Sexual health is also at risk as a result of mining. Mining is an industry that exhausts accessible minerals in an area and moves on to the next, therefore, it involves the displacement of workers. These new camps that are formed by traveling miners are usually divided on sex lines. This combined with the larger amount of disposable income that these men now have results in a higher rate of sexual violence. Women are also disadvantaged by the mining industry because they are paid less than the men, therefore, they cannot reap the benefits of mining as men can and are reliant on men for income. In some cases, women engage in sexual activity for transactional purposes because they don't have the purchasing power that men have.
Child labor is also a result of mining activity: a significant portion of the mining in Peru is done as a result of child labor. This stems from a lack of educational opportunity and entrenched beliefs that labor from a young age is the best thing to do with one's children.
As for remedying some of the problems that stem from mining, things to think about are the harms that come to workers involved in the industry and possibly why workers are involved in this industry in the first place.
The first thing to do is not to vilify the workers who "perpetrate environmental damage." As Charlie Hamilton James said in his lecture at Caltech in 2018, environmental consciousness is a bourgeois concept. This is perhaps not the most nuanced stance, but the point is that the perspectives of the workers should be considered when looking at why mining continues. Minerals are natural resources that are used by the people who live there because it is a way to survive and perhaps escape the cycle of poverty. They cannot be faulted for trying to find a source of income. In fact, these workers are who should be targeted in terms of solutions to the harms of mining, because they are those who bear the brunt of the health consequences.
Things we can do are to increase awareness about handling mercury. A concept has been tried in Venezuela that has mercury from amalgam end up in a safe area as opposed to in the environment as a result of increasing miner awareness of mercury effects in the environment. Education is also a long term goal to reduce the emphasis on mining, because for rural communities in Peru, mining seems an option more desirable than education.
Sources:
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